The present invention is directed to a shutter seal assembly for opening and sealing an aperture on a surface. It has particular application for use in electrostatographic printing apparatus and in particular to a storage sump for the storage of toner cleaned from a photoreceptor, and in particular, is united with a new toner dispensing container to form a removable process unit which performs two functions that are the supply of new toner and the storage of waste or spent toner.
Recently there has been a tendency in the design of electrostatographic printing apparatus to place one or more of the functional units such as a photoconductor drum or developer housing in a removable processing cartridge or unit so that the customer or operator of the printing machine may replace a functional unit when it's lifetime has been exhausted or a different processing parameter such as toner color is desired. Exemplary of such machines are those described and illustrated, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,985,436 to Tanaka et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,556,308 to Hoppner et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,111,246 to Brailsford et al., all of which are hereby incorporated in their entirety herein by reference. Accordingly, the removable processing cartridges may be designed to contain a photoreceptor, a developing device, a cleaning device as well as a charging device. Alternatively, instead of placing all of the functional elements in a single processing cartridge there may be two or more processing cartridges wherein, for example, the photoreceptor, cleaning device and charge device are in one removable processing cartridge while the developer device is in another removable processing cartridge.
There is a desire, particularly with the smaller electrostatographic printing machines, to make these removable process units or cartridges as small as possible: Accordingly, the capacity of a cleaner sump, for example, in such a removable process unit may be diminished to accommodate this desire for compactness. One way to maintain the copiers and printers as compact as possible and still increase the capacity to store the cleaned toner is that illustrated and described in the above referenced copending application.